Villoglandular adenocarcinoma of cervix: pathologic features, clinical management, and outcome

BACKGROUND: The objective of the study was to investigate the management and prognosis of patients with villoglandular adenocarcinoma (VGA) of the uterine cervix. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The clinical presentation, pathology, management, and prognosis of 41 patients with VGA or other types of cervical adenocarcinoma (ADC) were retrospectively reviewed. RESULTS: During the patient follow-up period, the proportion of VGA was 8.1% in the cervical ADC cohort (41/507). The median age of the patients with VGA was 41.0 years. The most common presenting symptom was cervical contactive bleeding. There were 38 patients classified as FIGO stage IA1–IB. The median follow-up period was 38.5 months. There were no patient deaths, and only one patient showed recurrence. One of the patients delivered a healthy baby at 34 weeks of gestation prior to treatment with radical hysterectomy. The HPV HC2 test results showed that most patients were positive for HPV infection. HPV 16, 18, and 56 were positive in the 8 patients with HPV type test results. There were significant differences in the grade, depth of stromal invasion, lymph node metastasis, and recurrence between the VGA cases of FIGO stage I and the other types of cervical ADC of FIGO stage I (p<0.05). CONCLUSION: This study confirmed that VGA is a type of well-differentiated cervical cancer characterized by shallow stromal invasion, less lymph node metastasis. VGA is associated with less recurrence than other types of cervical ADC.